2017 AFL premiership season
Date	23 March – 30 September
Teams	18
Premiers	Richmond 11th premiership
Runners-up	Adelaide (1st runners-up)
Minor premiers	Adelaide 2nd minor premiership
Brownlow Medallist	Dustin Martin Richmond (36 votes)
Coleman Medallist	Lance Franklin Sydney (69 goals)
Attendance
Matches played	207
Total attendance	7,287,880 (35,207 per match)
Highest (H&A)	87,685 (round 5,Essendon vCollingwood)
Highest (finals)	100,021(Grand Final,Adelaide vs.Richmond)
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The2017 AFL season was the 121st season of theAustralian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior men'sAustralian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured eighteen clubs, ran from 23 March until 30 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by afinals series featuring the top eight clubs.

The premiership was won by theRichmond Football Club for the eleventh time, after it defeatedAdelaide by 48 points in the2017 AFL Grand Final.

The following amendments were made to the Laws of the Game for the 2017 season:^[1]

• Rules relating to around-the-ground ruck contests were amended such that only the nominated ruckman for each team is permitted in the contest, eliminating the option for another player to enter the contest and take the tap, otherwise known as the "third man up" strategy.^[2] This was done to make ruck contests easier to adjudicate, to reduce the risk of injuries to ruckmen, and to increase the value of the skill of ruckwork.^[2]
• A more stringent interpretation of deliberate rushed behinds was introduced, by allowing the umpire to consider prior opportunity, distance from the goal line and degree of applied pressure when judging whether or not to pay a free kick.
• Adjustments were made to the interpretation of high tackles, giving the umpire more discretion to call play-on when he deems that the tackled player is responsible for the high contact. This was introduced to discourage the practice of ducking into a tackle, dropping the knees when tackled or trying to shrug off a tackle to earn a free kick.^[3]
• A more stringent interpretation of punches to the body was introduced to the match review panel and tribunal to allow for suspensions to be imposed; and to allow fines to be imposed for low impact jumper punches.
• Thedeliberate out of bounds free kick was amended, lowering the threshold for a free kick from 'intentionally' putting the ball out of bounds to 'not demonstrating sufficient intent' to keep the ball in bounds.^[4]

Thepre-season series of matches in 2017 was known as the JLT Community Series; its new sponsor wasJardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT),^[5] who replacedNational Australia Bank (NAB) after NAB elected to sponsor theinaugural AFL Women's season instead.^[6] The series featured 27 practice matches played over 25 days, beginning on 16 February and ending on 12 March. The matches were stand-alone, with no overall winner of the series. Each team played three games, many at suburban or regional venues. All matches were televised live onFox Footy as well as on the AFL Live app.^[7] The nine-pointsuper goal was used in these matches.

Notable features of the draw include:

• The naming rights ofYork Park were bought by theUniversity of Tasmania fromAurora Energy in the week prior to the full fixture being released, with the venue becoming known as the University of Tasmania Stadium.^[8]
• Greater Western Sydney sold the naming rights forManuka Oval during the AFL season to theUniversity of New South Wales, and the stadium became known as the UNSW Canberra Oval.^[9]
• North Melbourne and theWestern Bulldogs played in the AFL's first ever Good Friday match, which was played atEtihad Stadium.^[10][11]
• Port Adelaide andGold Coast competed in the first AFL premiership match outside Australia and New Zealand when they played in round 8 atJiangwan Stadium inShanghai, China, with the match televised live on theSeven Network.^[12][13] Both teams had a bye the following round, while the remaining sixteen teams had their byes from rounds 11 to 13.^[14]
• Owing to redevelopment,Simonds Stadium was unavailable until round 9.^[15]
• The Western Bulldogs competed in the first AFL premiership match to be played atMars Stadium inBallarat when they facedPort Adelaide in round 22. The match was also the first AFL premiership match in a Victorian regional venue (other than Geelong) since a one-off round of promotional matches held in1952.^[16]
• All starting times are local.

• Adelaide recorded the longest unbeaten start to a season in club history, winning its first six games.^[42]
• Sydney was the first reigning grand finalist in VFL/AFL history to lose its first six matches of the following season,^[43] before becoming the first club to reach the finals after starting the season with zero wins and six losses.^[44]
• Western Bulldogs became the first team sinceHawthorn in2009 and the first team in the 18 team competition to fail to make the finals after winning the premiership the previous year.^[45]
• Essendon became the first team sinceWest Coast in2011 to qualify for the finals after finishingwooden spooners the previous season.^[46]
• West Coast reached the finals at the expense ofMelbourne on percentage by 0.48 percentage points, a difference equivalent to only nine on-field points. It is the narrowest margin in VFL/AFL history to decide a finals spot.^{[citation needed]}
• This was the last season in which games were played atDomain Stadium, with the Western Australian teams playing home games atPerth Stadium from 2018 and onwards.^[47]
• Adelaide's record of 15 wins, 1 draw and 6 losses is the least successful of any minor premier since1997.
• Brisbane Lions' record of 5 wins and 17 losses is the most successful of any wooden spooner since the Lions themselves in1998.
• Richmond had the highest average home-and-away and home game attendance of any club in 2017, with figures of 46,580 and 55,958 respectively.^[48]

Bold – Home game
X – Bye
Opponent for round listed above margin

• Numbers highlighted in green indicates the team finished the round inside the top eight.
• Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished in first place on the ladder in that round.
• Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place on the ladder in that round.
• Underlined numbers indicates the team had a bye during that round.
• Subscript numbers indicate ladder position at rounds end.

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found onPhabricator and onMediaWiki.org.